Royal Opera House / Reviews

The role of Zerlina is usually given to a lighter voice, but not here: Russian soprano Julia Lezhneva, making her Covent Garden début, has a voice with more than enough depth and power to match Anna or Elvira. I'm not sure it was ideal casting to bring out the contrasts in character, but it was exciting to listen to and I'm sure we'll see more of Lezhneva in less soubrettish roles.

Sieglinde’s Neiding husband, Hunding, was Ain Anger. Mr. and Mrs. God, Wotan and Fricka, were John Lundgren and Sarah Connolly. Brünnhilde, Wotan’s favourite daughter, was Nina Stemme. Her sister Valkyries were Alwyn Mellor, Lise Davidsen, Kai Rüütel, Claudia Huckle, Maida Hundeling, Catherine Carby, Monika-Evelin Liiv and Emma Carrington; and I haven’t heard them better sung. Antonio Pappano conducted.

In this new production, the first ever at the Royal Opera House, director John Fulljames updates the scenario to the present day (or even 2020) and tells us that we are not so much entering an auditorium as Mahagonny itself. Before the curtain has even risen projections inform us of what is and isn’t permitted, and alert us to relevant apps. Then through clever camera work we all become complicit in Jimmy’s execution because surely any of us had the opportunity to bail him out.

There are opportunities aplenty at the moment to catch rare Rossinis, with WNO taking Mosè in Egitto and Guillaume Tell on the road and a production of the latter looming at Covent Garden. While awaiting that highlight of the 2015 season, the Royal Opera House gave its Young Artists a chance to please audiences with a Linbury staging of one of the early one-acters, La scala di seta (The Silken Ladder).

To avoid repeating the contents of previous reviews, let’s get two things out of the way: (1) Il trovatore is one of my favourite operas. (2) I didn’t like David Bösch’s Royal Opera staging the first time and repeated viewings serve merely to reinforce my irritation at the details (although, to be fair, the bulk of the awful cartoon animations have been excised from this revival). So this review is going to be almost entirely about the singing. Under the baton of Richard Farnes, the Covent Garden orchestra turned in a solid performance. Tension was maintained, rubato and variation in dynamics deftly handled, balance with the singers was good. Amidst a generally good cast, one singer stood out: Anita Rachvelishvili as Azucena. She does extraordinary things with her voice: pianissimi that are hushed to a whisper still penetrate the whole hall, and then shift to terrifying high notes with complete control. Her “Stride la vampa” put goosebumps on my flesh, her duets with Gregory Kunde’s Manrico were filled with urgency and drama, the sweetness of “Ai nostri monti” was heartbreaking. It’s hard to believe that Rachvelishvili’s role debut was just a couple of months ago: here is an Azucena that can hold her own in any company. Kunde’s tenor doesn’t have a timbre that I’m naturally drawn to, but I can’t fault the way he tackled the role. Phrases came out with nice bel canto contours, there was plenty of expression in the voice – including in some of Verdi’s more implausible recitative passages, where other tenors give up – and he had plenty of power for the big moments without sounding strained. Kunde has improved in the role since I saw him last year, and so has Lianna Haroutounian as Leonora. The creamy tone for big arias like “Tacea la notte placida” has now grown from a demonstration of beautiful singing into something more heartfelt, the recitative “O dolci amiche” more fervent as she approaches the altar, her reunion with Manrico, “È questo un sogno, un'estasi”, more joyful. However, the performance had its imperfections: the complex decoration of the cabaletta “Di tale amor” were not handled well; Haroutounian is clearly more comfortable singing in an expansive legato. Many of those booking for this performance will have been hoping to see Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who withdrew in December due to ill health. Everyone will be wishing him well. Making his Royal Opera debut, it’s unsurprising that Vitaliy Bilyy doesn’t quite have Hvorostovsky’s star quality, but this was a very promising start to his Covent Garden career. The Count di Luna is a tricky role to balance: too polished a legato and you fail to bring across the man’s villainous nature; too harsh and guttural and you miss out on the gorgeousness of an aria like “Il balen del suo sorriso”. For me, Bilyy got it just about spot on; I’ll be looking forward to hearing more of him. Another promising Ukrainian, Alexander Tsymbalyuk, sang the bass role of Ferrando. It’s another tricky role. Ferrando has to come straight out of the blocks because after a very short prelude, his opening narration, “Di due figli”, is a barnstormer that sets the scene for the whole opera – after which he gets very little to do for the remainder. Tsymbalyuk delivered it with force, marred only by a few oddities of phrasing and the fact that his voice is somewhat young for the role – as are his looks. For the second Verdi opera in a row at Covent Garden, I found myself wishing that the make-up department had done something to prevent Ferrando and Azucena from looking younger than Manrico and Di Luna, who are supposed to be the age of their children. For a production that was last staged as recently as last July, this run of Il trovatore is getting a substantial number of performances, and the Royal Opera management’s faith is being repaid in that every performance has been virtually sold out. Whatever my reservations about the staging, it remains a great opera which is being well played and sung.

A hint of psychological depth is promised in the overture, where we see Leonora and Don Carlo as children, brother intimidating sister, then she cradling her other brother – who died, we learn from Loy's note – in imitation of the Pietà. It also shows Don Carlo leaving the family home before the night of his father's fatal accident.

Antonio Pappano’s conducting and Nina Stemme’s singing help create a robust, punchy Wagner Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/60a06cda-c62f-11e8-ba8f-ee390057b8c9 In any opera company, Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen remains the jealously guarded province of the music director. The current Royal Opera production, which is being seen for the last time, started life in 2004 soon after Antonio Pappano’s arrival and has stretched nearly 15 years into his tenure. In that time Pappano has never missed a cycle. His full-blooded conducting has kept the dramatic energy coursing through the operas without fail, but this time round the music has felt even more robust and punchy, especially in the climactic high drama of Götterdämmerung. Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/60a06cda-c62f-11e8-ba8f-ee390057b8c9 Among the rest of the cast, Stephen Milling is outstanding as Hagen, singing with huge power, but also scrupulous in his care for the text and phrasing. Stefan Vinke cuts rather a boorish figure as Siegfried, but has ringing top notes to burn and seems tireless. Emily Magee and a rather husky-voiced Markus Butter were adequate as Gutrune and Gunther. Karen Cargill gave Waltraute’s narration a deep-toned dignity and Johannes Martin Kränzle repeated his not-very-evil Alberich. The three Norns were led by the authoritative Lise Davidsen, the three Rhinemaidens by the shining Lauren Fagan.

The more one sees performances of Verdi’s Falstaff, the more strange it appears. Verdi’s last opera is not only atypical in his career for being only his second comedy (along with the early Un giorno di regno)out of more than two dozen total operas, it is far different in means than his main body of work. The opera is mostly dialogue and ensembles, there is barely a signature Verdi aria, and even that is incomplete.

Verdi, Macbeth: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden / Daniele Rustioni (conductor). Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 16.11.2021. (CC)

"young Korean bass Josef Jeongmeen Ahn as Almaviva’s servant Fiorello, this cast was as vocally perfect as one could wish."

...mindent összevetve nagyon ízléses, lendületes, szép látványvilággal színpadra állított Don Carlos-produkció jött létre. Méltó egy olyan város színházához, amelynek operafesztiválja van.

With two grim premieres among the offerings, Monteverdi’s sharp “L’Incoronazione di Poppea” was the highlight of a week of opera.

Not all choreographers are good directors, but Christopher Wheeldon is. Even when dealing with a tricky text such as Laura Esquivel’s magical realist novel Like Water for Chocolate, his is a steady hand. His choreography seems in a telepathic relationship with the melody and mystery of Joby Talbot’s score, while Bob Crowley’s designs, inspired by Mexican architect Luis Barragán, give a sense of heat and isolation, and some visually arresting coups de theatre.

How cruel these old comedies are! Don Pasquale, close to the end of Donizetti’s astonishing and tragically truncated career – this was his 64th opera; only two more were to come – is sometimes spoken of as being rather more nuanced than other examples of the genre. But at core it is the quintessential commedia dell’arte story of young love triumphing over authority in the shape of an old man. Or, to put it another way, it presents, for our approval, the spectacle of an old man being punished for attempting to foil the desires of the young.

From the set design to the costumes to the incandescent vocals, The Royal Opera House raises the bar yet again with this performance of Don Giovanni.

If it's not broke, don't fix it!" Most clichés gain their status through being true, but that one is honoured in the breach as often as in its application, the desire to sell something new (even if it isn't really) as addictive to the vendor as it is to the buyer. Not always though. "25 years of Richard Eyre's La Traviata" is emblazoned (in gold, no less) on the cast list and the programme compiles a Who's Who of opera stars who have sung the roles in that quarter century - it was staged here as recently as January after all! So you've every right to expect something good, something slick, something that can fill hundreds of seats on wet Tuesday night a week before Christmas. And that's what you get.

Anita Hartig and Ellie Dehn share similar voice types, which makes their fourth-act shenanigans when Susanna and the Countess swap identities more convincing than usual. Each has a feather-light timbre – indeed, there were moments in "Dove sono" when Dehn's could have done with guy ropes to weigh it down – and they bring such airiness to their big duet, "Sull'aria", that they all but waft away on the breeze. The scene stealer in this revival is Heather Engebretson as Barbarina, who peeps in like a schoolgirl then pipes up like a diva. The young American is a name to watch and a perfect partner for Kate Lindsey's gangling, hopelessly priapic Cherubino. Of the opera's other comic roles, the great mezzo Ann Murray is on her best vinegary form as Marcellina, but the Bartolo and Basilio of Carlo Lepore and Krystian Adam are a touch under-characterised. Ivor Bolton conducts a ROH Orchestra composed of stay-at-homes from the company's Japanese tour, no doubt bolstered by deps, but the standard is as high as one would expect of a band bearing the house name. Despite some fastish tempo choices, matters are mostly (but not invariably) secure between pit and stage, so Mozart carries the day and bliss is king.

Luxury casting abounds as Thomas Allen returns as the harassed Music Master, Nikolay Borchev impresses as a priapic Harlequin and Karen Cargill's Exocet mezzo brings her brilliantly sung Dryad to the fore. Another mezzo, Ruxandra Donose, is dynamic as the hapless Composer. The high-lying passages may challenge her (like so many of Strauss's female roles it was intended for a soprano) but she sings her concentrated set pieces with idiomatic gusto and acts with practised ease as the proud creative artist who's beset by (understandable) mood swings. Jane Archibald has performed the flirtatious coloratura clown Zerbinetta far and wide, and her assurance in the character's big solo scena is now breathtaking. Show-stopping, jaw-dropping, the casual precision of Archibald's stratospheric brilliance has to be heard to be believed. All of these seemingly disparate parts are wrought into a seamless whole by the conducting of Lothar Koenigs in a distinguished Royal Opera debut. How sensitively he gauges the balance of Strauss's orchestrations! They're unusually light in this opera, but he supports the voices subtly: airy for Zerbinetta, full-blooded under Mattila's dramatic soprano and Smith's Heldentenor in the expansive, neo-Wagnerian finale. Five-star shows are hard to define - they're not necessarily about perfection - but you know when you've seen one. This is a shoo-in.

In the title role, Elena Maximova disappointed. She has the looks and moves for the part, power to burn and the right sort of dark colour in the voice. But a thick accent was allied to awful diction, with hardly a consonant intelligible all evening. I spent the evening struggling to work out the words from a combination of memory and back-translation of the surtitles, and that kills any possibility of being swept away by siren-like sexuality, which is required to make the whole opera plausible. Just like the singing, the orchestral performance was mixed. Bertrand de Billy kept things moving nicely and strings and woodwind gave good, precise performances: the prelude to Act III, when they’re playing on their own, was the orchestral highlight of the evening. But there were simply too many errors and hesitancies in brass and percussion: this is a score where anything less than immaculate timing of triangle or tambourine notes can throw the whole flow of the music. The result was an orchestral performance that was adequate without ever touching greatness. Zambello’s staging is appealing: her take on 19th century Seville is well lit and bustling, very much one’s ideal of a Hispanic city in the burning sun gathered from Zorro movies or elsewhere. But it gives a lot of rope on which a revival director can hang himself: there is a huge amount of movement on stage and it all needs to be executed crisply. Under the revival direction of Duncan Macfarland and choreography of Sirena Tocco, last night’s cast and chorus were good enough to execute it all correctly, but not good enough to give the sense of doing so with abandon. The defining example was extras abseiling down the walls, who landed with care rather than with a thump and a flourish; the exception was the Royal Opera Youth Company, with the children throwing themselves into the action with delightful abandon and brio. For anyone seeing Carmen for the first time, this production will have been a more than satisfactory evening. Old hands hoping to see something extra will find it in Hymel and Car, but not elsewhere.

Graeme Broadbent steals the show as the cynical Satyr who advises the men that marriage will be merely trouble and strife, he projects robust good humour while thrilling us with a gravelly basso profondo. Sky Ingram is a splendid Venus, a magnet for the audience’s attention. Louise Alder’s Eurydice is the pick of the singers for the sublime parts. The set of emotions she has to project isn’t exactly complex, but she puts across Eurydice’s fidelity and despair in an engaging manner, helped by a sweet voice, spot-on intonation and well-turned phrasing.In view of Mary Bevan having a throat infection, the title role was sung by Siobhan Stagg with Bevan acting – the plan is that Stagg will act the role also from the third performance until Bevan’s return. Obviously, having to split the role isn’t ideal, but Bevan put in a sterling effort at mime and Stagg showed that she certainly has the voice for the role. Some of the theatrical tricks worked well. Venus’s transformation into the old crone Alkippe is masterly, and the appearance of the Three Graces in Act II (I won’t give the game away) comes as a real shock. I enjoyed Act III a lot more, when the frantic pace slackened off and we were treated to some truly lovely arias from Stagg’s Orpheus, Alder’s Eurydice and Caitlin Hulcup as Aristaeus - having spent most of the previous two Acts being downtrodden and risible, Hulcup seized her chance to project some real pathos. L’Ormindo, from the same period, by the same company at the same venue, was the best thing I saw last season. Orpheus doesn’t come close to that completeness, but any performance at the Sam Wanamaker is a delight and there’s plenty to enjoy in this production. And it’s worth going out of historical interest alone.

The music begins with thunderous bass drum rolls from batteries of percussion in the boxes adjacent to the pit, but soon settles into an unbroken, gradually flowing and changing orchestral texture. Ligeti’s music of the early 60s is a clear ancestor, and when combined with the stark white visual images and low-angled lighting, Kubrick’s 2001 often comes to mind, especially when the monolithic door projects its long shadow across the stage. But, unlike Ligeti, Haas doesn’t work in continuous chromatic clusters, his textures are more open: octaves, tritones, even tonal triads. But most sounds grow from silence and swell in intensity before returning, subsumed by the next wave. Offstage choral effects are added into the mix, and Haas integrates the vocal timbre into the orchestral textures while deftly negotiating the more semantic and emotive dimension that voices always bring. Excellent musical performances throughout, with conductor Michael Broder, here making his house debut, bringing out all the textures and colours in a reading of impressive clarity and focus. A uniformly fine cast too, all of whom master the complex harmonic relationships – often very close harmonies or outright dissonances – between their simultaneous lines. Staging can’t match the scale of the score: but for the huge orchestra, this feels like a chamber opera. That imbalance aside, the results are impressive, the music always engaging, and the staging fulfilling all of its dramatic aims, however modest.

Kasper Holten has evidently made changes to the production since its first run, but the basic premise remains the same. Holten seems fascinated by the idea of memory, and the two parts of the opera (the first five scenes up to and including the duel, and the final two scenes which take place some time later) are stitched together by having the older Tatyana and Onegin appear during the opera's prelude. Holten then tries to play the whole opera as a memory, using two dancers (Emily Ranford and Tom Shale-Coates) as the young Tatyana and young Onegin.During the dance at Madame Larina's it became clear that the production was moving between the real and some sort of memory space. There were moments when the lighting made the fixed set (a series of openings which could function as doors, shuttered windows or curtained of areas) look shabby and down at heel and the playing area acquired the detritus of memory, the sheaf from the peasants dance in the first scene, Tatyana's books, and this continued so we had a broken chair from the fight at Madame Larina's, the blasted tree from the duel scene and ultimately the prone body of Lensky as Michael Fabiano lay motionless throughout the two final scenes.The young Australian singer Nicole Car came close to my idea Tatyana. She sang with bright flexibility, with an underlying strength and firmness. She seemed to flit effortlessly between the young and older Tatyanas and was that rare species of singer who is able to incarnate both of them. In the first scenes, as young Tatyana, she really did look and sound young, yet in the letter scene produced a superb sense of maturity and depth to her performance. Much of the letter scene was sung directly to the audience and was searingly intense whilst remaining musical. Car has the potential to be a finely poised older Tatyana but in this production she cracks in the last scene and goes to pieces as much as Onegin.Dmitri Hvorostovsky, whom I understand to be still under treatment for his brain tumour. showed no sign of the illness and sang with his familiar dark, firm tones. For the opening scenes he was quite restrained, and not perhaps as darkly sexy as some, but brought in very much the fact that Onegin is a dandy. You sense that Hvorostovsky knows his Pushkin. This combination of hauteur and dandyism made his put-down of Tatyana all the more devastating. The climax in the final scenes, as Onegin goes to pieces, was very well done, but lacked the shock element as we had already seen the older Onegin throughout the opera. The duet with Michael Fabiano's Lensky was profoundly moving, Holten's concept for once moving in tandem with the music and reinforcing the message.The smaller roles were all strongly cast. Jean-Paul Fouchecourt was almost luxury casting as Monsieur Triquet, whilst Elliot Goldie, David Shipley, James Platt and Luke Price provided strong support as a peasant singer, a captain, Zaretsky and Guillot. In the pit Semyon Bychkov gave use everything we wanted and more. This was a lyrically passionate account of the score which still flowed beautifully and where the passion never made the music feel overblown or driven. Rarely have a heard a performance of Eugene Onegin which sounded so right. I can understand some of the thinking behind Kasper Holten's production, but ultimately I found the closing scenes to be robbed of power by his almost over analytical approach. Thankfully the musical account of the score gave us the passion and lyrical beauty lacking in the production.

Uzbekistani tenor Mavlyanov made his Royal Opera debut tonight as Cavaradossi with no obvious show of nerves: his first aria Recondita Armonia was cool and composed, and his E lucevan le stelle in the final chapter displayed an impressive balance of tender warmth and burning passion. However, Frontali’s interpretation of the menacing Scarpia fell flat as the choral and orchestral forces were asked to save the grandeur of the Act 1 Finale, but his villainous affair with Tosca did revive his performance later on. A character of many faces, experienced soprano Echalaz embraced the melodramatic personality of Tosca in sublime fashion: from the opening jealousy-induced comedy and flirtatious dialogue with Cavaradossi to the breathtakingly poignant aria Vissi d’arte and graceful second act duets. Echalaz’s acting was as compelling as her voice, as she sealed Tosca’s tragic fate with a dignified leap from the walls of the Castel Sant’Angelo. Credit should also be given to the ROH Orchestra. Under the baton of Villaume, the orchestra provided a sensitive and equally passionate musical backdrop, from the blazing opening chords, the thunderous string unison force that marked the death of Scarpia, the graceful woodwind colours, the notable clarinet melody heartening Cavaradossi’s final act romanza and the strident forte brass in the catastrophic conclusion. The mix of rousing drama, inevitable tragedy and an opulent musical orchestration full of exquisite melodies, rich harmonies and textures left the capacity audience moved by Puccini’s operatic achievement.

When it emerged that one of the world’s biggest companies had hired a young and almost completely inexperienced guy for their latest effort, many were perturbed. But Chris Addison proves them wrong in Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’Étoile which has opened at the Royal Opera House. The comedian — known for his role in The Thick Of It — plays Smith, a role which fits his acting and stand-up talents like a glove. It involves, after all, the kind of zany and bizarre plot that would turn Malcolm Tucker into a mute pile of flailing eyebrows.Kate Lindsey stands out in her turn as Lazuli; her singing on O petite étoile, where Lazuli thanks his lucky star is especially poignant. Ouf’s Couplets de pal (describing his penchant for impaling) is the perfect introduction to this opera’s dark humour.The acting across the cast raises the laugh levels as does a set inspired by Terry Gilliam’s work for Monty Python. The addition of many modern references — including verbal nods to the Mayor of London and the capital’s most famous consulting detective — gives L’Étoile unexpected twists when they are least expected. On the same night that Addison popped his opera cherry, director Mariame Clement opened her account in Covent Garden and conductor Mark Elder celebrated 40 years of waving a baton for the Royal Opera House. This low-profile and laudable production may yet lay the groundwork for more milestones yet.

It tells the tale of the 16th century Russian tsar Boris Godunov who seized power after the death of Ivan the Terrible, allegedly after supervising the murder of Ivan's son, and went on to be almost as terrible as his predecessor. In the opera, he is plagued with guilt and ends up going mad, so the whole thing becomes a case history of increasing derangement. Most unusually, there is no major role for a woman singer, so there are no great soprano arias to liughten the musical mood, and it is Boris who dies at the end after the plot has meandered through the darker realms of insanity. The credit for the power of this scene goes equally to Terfel and the director, Richard Jones, and his team, whose striking design and costumes provide a visual treat matching the power of the music. Jones does, however, rather overdo a repeated vision tormenting Boris of the murder of Ivan's son which brought Boris to power.With Bryn Terfel as Boris dominating the show, all other roles are reduced to bit parts, but it is worth mentioning John Tomlinson as a drunken monk, who provided a much needed comic interlude to interrupt the sombre tale. As always, however, Bryn Terfel is well worth seeing and the intensity drawn from the orchestra by Antonio Pappano is magnificent.

Ramin Gray’s stage direction, revised for this new space, adds its own level of enjoyable perverseness, controlled mayhem and humour. From the ‘fourth wall’-defying ploy of having the cast members occupying the front row of the stalls when not on stage (proving that not every farce needs doors) to the clever interaction of singers and on-stage instrumentalists, everything comes together to give Barry’s 90-minute score the context it needs. As with the music, the production plays with our pre-conceived ideas and completely dispels any sense of the play’s Victorian roots. Lady Bracknell, played by a basso profundo (nothing strange there, given the drag interpretations on the West End stage and elsewhere), is here a man in a pinstripe suit; failed novelist Miss Prism reads Fifty Shades... while her pupil Cecily is distracted; the entire cast brings out mobile phones to look up Jack’s father in the Army List. Most of the cast members are alumni of the production’s initial run in 2013, and they all played their roles with such relish that one can imagine they’ve been itching to return to them in the intervening years. Despite all the composer’s frequent writing against vocal type – a challenge to the singer in itself – it wasn’t enough to hide the sheer elan and musicianship involved in bringing these characters to life. Paul Curievici (Jack) and Benedict Nelson (Algernon) both had their moments of refined lyricism yet were equally adept at quick-delivery one-liners and farcical stage business. Stephanie Marshall’s Gwendolen conveyed just the right vocal weight to suggest that she could indeed become like her mother, Lady B; and Claudia Boyle’s Royal Opera debut as Cecily brought a neat line in anarchically flighty coloratura to her portrayal. Alan Ewing was a commanding Lady Bracknell, with the odd touch of fragile falsetto to counteract the character’s storming off into German elsewhere, and contralto Hilary Summers used her own ‘profundo’ range to give weight to her encapsulation of Miss Prism’s insecurities. Kevin West, also new to the cast, made the most of his cameo as Chasuble the parson, as did Simon Wilding with his ever-present but vocally reticent Lane/Merriman, the servant seemingly getting his ‘revenge’ with a last plate-smashing spree to close the work. The running text projected on to the back wall of the stage was superflouous given the excellent diction from everyone involved. The accompanying chamber ensemble has a virtuoso role in Barry’s score, and the players of the Britten Sinfonia under conductor Tim Murray were constantly kept on their toes. The playing was brash, refined and dazzling as required and the brass in particular – from trilling horns to stratospherically dancing trumpet – deserve particular praise.

The opera two of its best vocal performances, from Štefan Kocán, grave and urgent as the watchman who tries to dissuade Oedipus from his quest, and from Marie-Nicole Lemieux, who takes on the Sphinx’s ferociously difficult lines with aplomb, swooping up and down through the extremes of the range, and creates a real flesh-and-blood character out of the agent of fate. The title role makes extraordinary demands on the baritone, who is the centre of attention almost continually for two and a half hours. Johan Reuter gave a compelling rendering, with plenty of steel in the voice. At his best in the big emotional highs, he couldn’t keep up the highest standard for the whole time – I’m not sure I can think of a singer who could, which might explain why Oedipe isn’t performed more often – so some details were lost in the quieter moments. But this was a performance that reached deep into the heart of the drama and dug out enormous amounts of characterisation. There are no other lead roles. I could mention half a dozen others in an exceptionally strong supporting cast, but I’ll limit myself to one: the blind prophet Tiresias gets two interventions where his pronouncements alter the course of the whole drama. Sir John Tomlinson proved himself still capable of making a dramatic entrance and making us quail in our seats. My one cavil is that Peter van Praet’s lighting will have been too dark for anyone up in the amphitheatre, while blinding anyone in the stalls in the scene of Oedipus’ killing of his father, presented as a road rage incident. But my last word goes to conductor Leo Hussain, starting his Royal Opera career the hard way with a score of exceptional complexity, making it instantly accessible to first-time listeners and delivering colour and power throughout. Oedipe is opera at its most potent – visually, musically, vocally, dramatically. Go see it!

Verdi’s first successful opera may not be many people’s favourite but the current Royal Opera House production surely raises the work a few rungs up the ladder of appeal.Let’s start with the chorus. There are operas where the members of the chorus have a couple of numbers, walk on the stage, sing their piece and are shepherded off to the wings. Not in Nabucco. Verdi composed some exhilarating pieces for them and I am not referring solely to the all-too-famous Va pensiero. The chorus is bunched up in the centre of the stage when they render the legendary number but it is a mourning piece and does not call for electrifying singing like some of the other choruses. The augmented Royal Opera House Chorus is worth the price of admission alone.The title role is sung alternately by Placido Domingo, the grand old man of opera and the relative newcomer, Greek baritone Dimitri Platanias making his Royal Opera House role debut. He gives a signature performance. From the arrogant king to the unhinged ruler and humiliated father, he achieves simply superb vocal resonance and emotional range. Just listen to his delivery of Deh perdona (Have mercy on a delirious father) where the great king is reduced to begging for mercy for his daughter from a slave who scorns him.Soprano Jamie Barton is Nabucco’s real daughter and the one who has snatched the tenor. She does not face the same demands as Monastyrska but she gives a praiseworthy performance. Tenor Leonard Capalbo gives a fine accounting of himself in the role of Ismaele.Director Daniele Abbado and Designer Alison Chitty have opted for a production that has modern overtones especially with the issue of displaced people and refugees. The costumes are modern and I felt that the direction given was “come as you are and bring your children for good measure.” That is not as bad as it sounds because ordinary dress is quite suitable and many of the refugees one sees on television are not dressed better or worse than what one sees on stage at the Royal Opera House. Children are very much a part of the refugee problem and having a few of them on stage was á propos. The set consisted of rectangular rocks and sand for much of the production. There was judicious use of projections (designed by Luca Scarzella) to dramatize some aspects of the production. The concept behind the productions seems sound but I am not sure that the execution of it matched the intent.Benini conducted the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House with the vigour and discipline that the music and concept of the opera demand. It was an outstanding performance.

rigolo's tenor has an appealing combination of clarity, openness and warmth. There's never any doubt that a phrase will be well turned with any high notes hit cleanly. Technically, Grigolo is highly impressive when it's time for the pianissimi or fine dynamic control. His matinée idol looks make him thoroughly credible as the youthful poet, and if I'm going to nit pick, the one imperfection to point out is in his acting: he convinces completely when playing the ardent lover, less so as the desperate suicide. DiDonato's creamy-smooth mezzo is totally capable of anything that Massenet can throw at it and she sings Charlotte with an assurance that belies the fact that this is the first time she has done so on stage (she sang the role in concert in Paris in April). Timbre, dynamics and phrasing are all wonderful, but it's a very difficult role to characterise: Charlotte has to combine being the epitome of propriety and adherence to duty on the outside with repressed inner passions on the inside, allowing these to burst through to the surface only in the last act. DiDonato did a decent job of making so conflicted a character seem real, and she and Grigolo had good chemistry between them, but I don't know that I ever really suspended disbelief. Antonio Pappano brought some fine playing from the Royal Opera orchestra to bring us the orchestral colour and the romantic sweep of the piece. There were several well rendered instances of the Wagnerian trick (much emulated in film music) of letting the audience hear what's going to happen in the music slightly before the events actually happen on stage.Charles Edwards sets are easy on the eye (I particularly like the Act II promenade with its stone steps and acute perspective) and frame the action well; revival director Andrew Sinclair handles the action effectively: the scenes of domestic bliss in Act I, when Charlotte is being mummy to her gaggle of younger siblings, were nicely poignant. The orchestral playing is excellent, the production is highly competent all round and there are two great singers in the lead roles. If you're a Massenet fan, it's well worth catching.

Francisco Negrin directed this production. It looks quite utilitarian (one set, grey with doors and openings on each side and a fire constantly burning at the front of the stage), however Negrin does some very interesting things with the production. He focuses on Azucena the gypsy and her history, the overture and the first aria (Di due figli vivea padre beato) in which a brilliant Tagliavini’s Roberto recounts the sorry history in one corner of the stage.Ludovic Tézier is, in my opinion, one of the best baritones in the world, and in this performance he more than lives up to that reputation as the evil Count di Luna. Tézier doesn’t just ‘do’ evil though. Through his wonderful use of colour and his strong acting, he humanises the Count, making him more morally grey in a black and white world. His singing is just perfect, that range, that timbre – it was a genuine pleasure to listen. Maria Agresta as Leonora was again, fantastic, she gave it everything that she had. Her D’amor sull’ali rosee in particular was stunning, and brought the house down.This production is a brilliant exploration of the characters. Negrin adds depth and humanity to the performance, which is so rare and important for this opera in particular. The leading cast and chorus were brilliant, with some truly phenomenal, and at points, haunting, singing and acting, a must see.

Whenever Semyon Bychkov conducts Strauss I think I've died and gone to heaven. Here though, as he hauls himself through late Mozart, it's the other place that beckons. This Così fan tutte is beyond effortful: the maestro's laboured tempos in most of the arias are so extreme that he adds 15 minutes to the opera's standard running time.After a vocally tight first duet, both Corinne Winters and Angela Brower give delightful accounts of the young women. Winters in particular sings a Fiordiligi of rare range and beauty, with surprisingly strong mezzo notes as well as a radiant upper range. Brower's Dorabella could be more flighty in the second act, but that is down to the director's focus. Gloger shows little interest, either, in exploring the character of Despina, Alfonso's aide-de-camp, although Sabina Puértolas does what she can with her. Alessio Arduini sings a richly basso-shaded Guglielmo most winningly, but it is Daniel Behle who steals the laurels with an account of Ferrando's "Un' aura amorosa" in which time stands still (with a little help from Bychkov). What an exciting tenor he is! It all looks great, with an extravagance of fast-changing eye candy from designer Ben Baur that's exquisitely lit by Bernd Purkrabek, but the price to pay for Gloger's cleverness is an almost total detachment from the characters' psychological interplay—and that's a killer blow to this of all operas. Should the conductor share the blame for that? This Così will earn a revival, so we'll see.

Laughter is a powerful dramatic weapon. Not the kind of laughter you normally get in the Royal Opera House - knowing, self-conscious - but actual inelegant, snorting-before-you-even-realised-it laughter. Kosky harnesses this anarchic force, startling an audience expecting an improving piece of musical modernism by giving them instead a disarming piece of cutthroat comedy.Kosky, in a brilliant sleight of hand, transforms the oversized nose into a mischievous tap-dancing boy. Ilan Galkoff clearly has a ball, and together with his troupe of adult tap dancers (ten in total) they nearly romp off with the piece, thanks to Otto Pichler's superb choreography and the witty designs of Klaus Grunberg.A rash of false noses and some elaborate costumes make it hard to identify many of the players, but the core ensemble make their presence known, relishing the vernacular rough and tumble of David Pountney's new English translation. John Tomlinson leers and lurches and broods as (by turns) the Barber, Newspaper Office Clerk and Doctor, while the double act of Helene Schneiderman and Ailish Tynan forms a deliciously grotesque mother and daughter team. Alexander Kravets's Police Inspector finds comic gold in the composer's extraordinarily demanding vocal writing, and Susan Bickley makes much of her cameo as the Old Countess. But the evening belongs to Martin Winkler, a singing-actor of such skill, whose physical and vocal clowning as the luckless Kovalev - all orifices and ooze in Kosky's hideous portrait - must penetrate this bustling phantasmagoria and make us care. Panto season has arrived early, and for those who like their clowns sad and their comedy sharpened to a point, there won't be a better show this winter.

Oreste, taken from Euripides, was the first of the three pasticcio operas (sort of paste-ups) which Handel himself created from his own works. It outlines Oreste’s reunion with his sister Iphigenia (remarkably secure soprano Jennifer Davis) while she is serving as high priestess of Diana in Tauris operating the harsh laws of King Toante (bass Simon Shibambu in crazed dictator mode), which require all strangers to be sacrificed. For Jones, the horrific cruelty of the classics translates easily into a grungy post-apocalyptic world where order has entirely broken down: a tagged urban underbelly where all protagonists wonder in a traumatised daze of psychopathic bloodlust. Acting is strong – we shall surely see more of baritone Gyula Nagy, and soprano Vlada Borovko, who lands in this world like something out of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and sings with style to match.The eight-strong Southbank Sinfonia under James Hendry impressed, with reliable tempos and much lyricism, and the lower strings relishing every scrunch on offer. But for all the ingenious attention to gruesome detail, it’s not entirely clear what this Handel-Mad Max mash-up really adds to our understanding of either.

La Boheme, Tosca and Madam Butterfly all end in gloriously tear-jerking deaths of his heroines. That pattern was set by his early work Manon Lescaut, which has never attained the popularity of his later operas, yet the music is just as luscious and excellent, as the current production at the ROH attests.Radvanovsky fit the role perfectly from the start, though Antonenko seemed to take time to work his way into it. His rather melodramatic acting style seemed to be overdoing it at first, but as the story progressed and he grew ever more depressed and desperate, it fitted his grief-laden situation better and better. American bass Eric Halfvarson was also in excellent form as Manon's aristocratic old-man lover turned persecutor. Best of all, however, was the way the Covent Garden Orchestra responded to Antonio Pappano's brilliant conducting. Pappano can always be relied upon to ensure a perfect balance between singers and orchestra, but on this occasion he really let rip with a furious tempo and variations of volume which threatened at times to engulf the singers, producing a terrific sense of tension and energy throughout.Only rarely can the magnificence of Puccini's music in this opera have been brought out so effectively. My one reservation concerns some of the extravagant ideas in Jonathan Kent's production. There's nothing wrong, on this occasion, in bringing the story of sordid degradation up to date, but the settings for the third and fourth acts were utterly bewildering.

In London, Fleming’s colleagues were less consistently good than Fleming herself. Reiffenstuel’s dresses for Alice Coote’s Octavian and Mariandel were not the most becoming the mezzo-soprano has worn on this stage, where she has thus far specialized in male characters. Coote’s singing was often ungainly, frequently with a discomfiting rawness to the tone. The finest exponent of the three main women’s parts was Sophie Bevan, who sang the ingenue role of her namesake to perfection, with a top register to die for.Steinberg’s family-sized sets looked too big on the Covent Garden stage; the Princess’s bedroom and its mammoth collection of dynastic paintings dwarfed the characters. A troublesome feature of Act II was a collection of enormous field guns and an obsession with rifles: in his desire to underline the militarism of his redesignated period, Carsen decided, without any specifics in Hofmannsthal’s text to back it up, that the army supplies that provide the basis of Faninal’s fortune were, in fact, armaments. Act III swapped the original’s dubious suburban inn for a palatial, populous brothel, where Ochs’s assignation with Mariandel almost got lost in the wider sweep of hedonistic goings-on. Overall, Carsen’s direction lacked the detail and focus that can make Der Rosenkavalier profoundly moving. Supplying some, at least, of the missing magic was the conducting of Andris Nelsons, whose enthusiasm for Strauss has already resulted in persuasive Covent Garden performances of Salome and Elektra. Once again his ability to balance super-enriched textures and provide dramatic momentum in a score that needs to be kept on the move paid rich dividends. The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House responded keenly to his confident direction.

The five-strong cast includes several of the work's creators. Christopher Purves again sings the Protector, baleful yet mellifluous except in some cruel interpolations for the baritone's head voice, while Barbara Hannigan, recently Mitchell's Mélisande (and Pelléas et Mélisande was one of Benjamin's avowed influences when planning this opera), returns in triumph as the passionate, wilful Agnès. She interprets the grotesque climactic transubstantiation with devastating simplicity. Mezzo Victoria Simmonds repeats her role as an Angel, joined on this occasion by no less a figure than tenor Mark Padmore as well as a handful of silent supernumeraries. All have been rigorously prepared for this revival by Mitchell and her admirable deputy, Dan Ayling. However, it's Iestyn Davies who raises the production to new heights. The countertenor makes his ROH role debut as the Boy, with an enigmatic presence that renders the harmonic eroticism of his duets with Hannigan all the more intriguing. Indeed, his melismatic delivery of the word 'merciful' suggests that he's a celestial visitor to a rotten world, come to give base mankind a bit of a kicking. If so, we could do with him now.

Gerard Finley was a different Michonnet from others I’ve seen – more expansive, less of a character actor – but the beauty of his velvet timbre and his lieder singer’s attention to the nuance of the text made him intensely watchable. Each time he portrayed one of the scenes where Michonnet finds himself incapable of declaring his true love to Adriana, I felt the man's wrenching melancholy; his unheeded advice to Adriana not to meddle in the affairs of the great was heartbreaking.Tenor voices are a matter of taste, and I have to admit that in this kind of repertoire, I prefer a darker, more rounded timbre to Brian Jagde’s bright, clear tones. But Jagde tackled the role of the dashing Maurizio with enthusiasm and improved steadily through the evening, at his best in the boisterous relation of his war heroics, “Il russo Mèncikoff”. On the softer side, he was effective in the tenderness of the closing duets as Adriana dies of poison.As ever at Covent Garden, supporting roles were strongly cast, most notably Bálint Szabó’s powerful bass as the Prince. Under Daniel Oren, the Royal Opera Orchestra turned in a solid performance – lacking, perhaps, in the last degree of Puccini-esque sweep and lustrous string timbre, but well paced and sprightly.This production of Adriana Lecouvreur isn't the star vehicle that I'm sure some would like, but it’s a solid, watchable, well put together and well performed production of an opera I love.

Elizabeth DeShong, making her Royal Opera debut, was a terrific Suzuki, her ripe, plum-toned mezzo fabulously dark in its lowest register. She turned on Carlo Bosi's wheedling marriage-broker with real venom and the Flower Duet with Jaho was beyond sublime.In the minor roles, Yuriy Yurchuk was a stately Yamadori – the prince offering Cio-Cio San a way out – and Jeremy White reprised his splenetic Bonze with vigour.Sir Antonio Pappano conjured miracles from the Covent Garden pit. Even the ROH brass was on its best behaviour in a tingling orchestral account. It's a blessing to have heard, in a single season, the world's two finest Puccini conductors (the other being Riccardo Chailly at La Scala) take the helm for this exquisite score. I fear any remaining tickets for this run (at least with Jaho as Butterfly) will be like gold dust, but Thursday's performance (30th March) is being broadcast live into cinemas if you want to net the greatest performance of the title role I've yet witnessed.